You sit across from him at your favorite café, the one with the mismatched chairs and the smell of cinnamon in the air. He’s telling you about his weekend—something about his dog refusing to go outside in the rain—and you laugh, genuinely, but your heart is beating a little too fast for such a simple moment.

You’ve known him for a while now. Long enough to memorize the way his eyes crinkle when he smiles and the exact tone his voice drops to when he’s about to say something serious. Long enough to fall in love with him, quietly, without meaning to.

He doesn’t know.

At least, you don’t think he does.

Sometimes he looks at you like maybe he could feel it too. Like maybe he wonders what your hand would feel like in his, or if your heart would speed up when he leaned a little closer. But he never says it. And you never ask.

Because if you asked, and the answer wasn’t what you hoped for— If he said, “I don’t feel that way,” If he pulled back, even just a little— You’d lose this. The comfort. The closeness. The way he already feels like home.

So instead, you laugh at his stories. You listen. You stay.

And you love him silently, from just close enough to hope… and just far enough to never know.